The limits of No Platform

I haven’t run this past the other comrades of the Paintbrush Collective yet, and I’m not entirely sure whether they would agree. So, to be clear, this is very much a personal view, so if you’re going to send us any excrement in the post, please make sure it’s clearly addressed to me.

First things first: I am a No Platformer. In my student days I vigorously defended our Student Union’s No Platform policy (and fought to strengthen it); was in favour of the NUS having a No Platform policy; and I helped organize large-scale opposition to Nick Griffin and David Irving’s visit to the Oxford Union Society in November 2007 (in fact, I resigned my Union membership in protest – which is £150 that I’ll never see again). I don’t repudiate any of that.

No Platform is not an aberration of free speech: the right to freedom of speech is one guaranteed by the State, and protects against state persecution on the basis of what you say. Free speech doesn’t mean that a private body – like a debating society, or a student union, or a trade union – has an obligation to allow its resources and prominence to be used by anyone.

In fact, they have a perfect right to deny these things to people whom they believe to lie outside of the best interests of their organization. To say otherwise is to hold a position that would oblige an organization to have a member of the Flat Earth Society present for any discussion of geography, so that they could point out the dangers of falling off the edge of the Earth.

Also, I believe that No Platform works. It’s not a cure-all for the Fascism problem, but it’s an important weapon in the fight. It contributes to the public perception of Fascists and Racists and being indecent, uncivillized, and at odds with the broadly liberal democratic values on which society and the political system rest – in short, very starkly outside of the political mainstream.

No Platform has also, I believe, protected a large number of people from danger and harassment. In addition to political reasons, I believed that the Oxford Student Union needed a No Platform policy so that its ethnic minority, gay, and disabled members could enjoy their student experience without the very definite risk to their personal wellbeing and security posed by BNP and other Fascist activism.

But on the issue of Nick Griffin’s likely invitation to appear on Question Time, I am a little more equivocal.

Obviously, I would prefer that he was never on the airwaves; but I would also prefer that he were not an MEP, and infortunately, he is.

I have to grudingly accept that the BBC’s policy – in line with OFCOM’s rules about political impartiality – are fair; there’s no other way for any British broadcaster to balance political parties other than according to their level of electoral success, especially if it’s a public service broadcaster like the BBC.

I would still fight for the right – and moral imperative – of a private organization to No Platform the BNP; I would encourage, for example, voluntary organizations who hold election hustings meetings to No Platform BNP election candidates, and if I were a Labour candidate I would refuse to share such a platform with a BNP member if we were both invited.

The point is, though, that broadcasting is different. It has to be.

So if we’re going to have a genuinely impartial broadcast media, we have to grit our teeth when that means the BNP leader gets to go on Question Time. That’s not the BBC’s fault – the uncomfortable truth is that it’s down to the number of people who voted for him, and the ultimate failure of the anti-Fascist movement to persuade them not to.

And if Griffin does go on Question Time, he’ll be able to spout his prejudice, but also his lies and innuendo with which he dresses his raw, naked racial hatred. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing worse that Nick Griffin going on Question Time is him being able to do this unchallenged.

I don’t generally buy the “defeat them in debate” argument, since hatred is not an argument, and therefore cannot be defeated by reasoned inquiry and opposition.

But this is an argument for not holding a debate. But once one is going to happen anyway, damage limitation is required – this means that someone is at least needed to point out the untruths and the window dressing and expose the fact that underpinning it all is pure, unadorned racism.

To this end, as a good No Platformer, I think that Labour should find someone who will be able to hold their nose and share a studio with Griffin – or at least reach some arrangement with the BBC whereby we are able to rebut his points directly (perhaps by having back-to-back programmes).

Labour Party members should support this view – if only because, from where we are now, the alternative is even worse.

Mad Nad rides again – legal edition

Apparently Nadine Dorries is going to sue Damian MacBride about the contents of his infamous email in April.

I can very well understand why Nadine might be upset. She says the allegations about her in MacBride’s email are false, and I have no reason to disbelieve her.

But how does this amount to a case that’s worthy of a courtroom?

Both the torts of libel and defamation require publication. I don’t see how the email MacBride sent to Derek Draper meets this criterion: publication, it seems, was specifically avoided. They were sent in a single email to a single recipient.

This is not to say that MacBride and Draper are anything other than a pair of idiots who got what was coming. However, there is something worrying happening in politics when the courts are continually used as an extra chamber in which to carry on essentially political debates. Apart from everything else, it’s a very expensive waste of time.

Or does Nadine think that spinning the MacBride story out for a few more months, to the benefit of the Tories and the detriment of Labour, is worth as much public money as may be wasted in frivilous litigation?

Conservative la-la land: the top seven fictions swollowed by the right

It has struck me recently that Conservatives – including even the huggable progressive types we’re apparently blessed with in the UK – have moved on from simply disagreeing on the politics or morals of issues: increasingly, they’re inventing their own reality as well.

This isn’t good for politics. Political opinions are based on your gut instincts about ephemeral, subjective, moral issues – what you think human nature truly is, what you think is moral and what immoral, and how you are willing to prioritize.

Facts, on the other hand, are facts – plain and simple. For sure, what is fact – or what is likely to be factually true, and what is unlikely – can be shrouded in mystery: but it’s important to put your consideration of what is a fact and what isn’t into a separate brain compartment to what’s just, correct and politic.

So, in that vein, here’s my favourite seven weird flat-earther fictions that some conservatives believe. I don’t necessarily mean Tories (although for each I’m sure I could point to Feel free to add your faves in the comments.

1. Climate Change. This must surely be the biggie. Environmental, man-made climate change has been part of the scientific consensus for decades. In 1990, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that carbon emissions were causing the earth’s temperature to rise, and they haven’t changed their minds since. In his excellent book “The Republican War on Science”, Chris Mooney points out that the overwhelming number of scientists writing in peer-reviewed journals support this thesis; the few contrarians emerge with very dubious claims. The right use a variety of tactics to deal with this – they claim either that there is no climate change; or that there is climate change, but that it has natural causes (these range from “solar warming” to undersea hot springs); or that there is some man-made climate change, but that we can’t or shouldn’t stop it; or that it’s simply a myth by whinging jealous lefties who secretly envy people who can afford to drive 4x4s and shop at Waitrose.
2. Birthers. This struck me as particularly mental when I read it recently – apparently 25% of Americans believe that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the USA (and therefore is ineligible to be President). Never mind that he has produced his birth certificate, or that the Republican Chief Justice was apparently happy to swear him in (twice!) despite knowing the rumours. But guess what? Most of them are Republicans. But it’s not just over there – our very own home-grown right-wing nutjob Donal Blaney flirts with the topic constantly (though he has, to be fair, avoided coming out as a full-on Birther – Mr Blaney is clearly very protective of his credibility).
3. BNP = Lefties. This one is guaranteed to get me going. I’m not going to rehash all of what I’ve said before, but it’s a laughably simplistic abomination of political history and political philosophy to claim that the BNP are a “leftist” party. It’s not what they think; it’s not what their political forbears believed; and it’s not what lefties (or, indeed, Conservatives!) of the past thought. But obviously, the rightist blogotariat are really onto something by saying that everything “statist” is vile, and that everything vile must be left-wing.
4. The MMR-Autism link. An odd one I’ll admit, but it’s been a pervasive debate in the Daily Mail for donkey’s years. Why it is such a right-wing hobby horse I have no idea; I’m tempted to say that their sheer hatred of the MMR-autism link sceptics it implies a worrying mistrust of all scientists and the norms of scientific methodology. Melanie Phillips loves to froth at the mouth about it; As the ever-brilliant Ben Goldacre points out, most of what she says is absolute bobbins.
5. the Laffer Curve. This is obviously in a different category to the scientific and factual items above – economic science being of a very different type – but it’s still in the category of right-wing dumbness. The Laffer Curve posits that if you have a either a 100% or a 0% tax rate you receive £0 in tax – at 0% because no tax is collected, at 100% because nobody would bother to work. It’s a fine (and rather trivial) theory – but conservatives constantly go on as if the rest of its shape is obvious and manifest, and that they know where we are on the curve, and that any tax rise will automatically lead to a fall in government revenue. Well hold on there – where’s the evidence to back up how this theory works in the real world? There isn’t any. Next time you hear it, just shout “cobblers” till they hit you and run away.
6. Creationism. In fairness, there aren’t nearly as many creationists in the UK as in the US, and they’re not as strongly associated with the organized political right. But it’s still concerning. Look at Conservapedia (from which I have been banned! True stories), if you can stomach it, to see just how messed up this all is. I particularly recommend their page on dinosaurs, which gives serious credence to the idea that dinosaurs and men co-existed on Earth (and that they may not be extinct).
7. Brit-amore. Chris Grayling says that Britain is “like the Wire“. This is preposterous. Actually, what he said was even more preposterous: he said that Britain has become like the Wire (i.e. that it is now, but wasn’t before). This contradicts every set of statistics on crime – including violent crime – over the past 15 years. As Sadie points out, murder is very easy to define and count, and isn’t subject to the statistical jiggery-pokery Tories love to shout about with crime stats – and it’s gone down year on year. You’re less likely to be murdered in the UK today than at any point since 1980.

Actually, on the last point, there is one place that is The Wire – Warrington. Congratulations to The Wires for their Challenge Cup win on Saturday.

Progressive Porkie Pies – fisking the new Tory video

The Tories have just released the video below, to launch “Conservative History Week”.

There’s been some comment on this elsewhere, particularly from Luke, Iain Dale and Guido – and as Luke points out, it’s often wrong (or, at least, deliberately disingenuous) in its attempt to put the Tories on the “progressive” side of history at every stage.

So I thought I’d give it a fisk.

• 00:16: “For more than two hundred years, Conservative leaders have succeeded by being on the side of progressive change”. Hmm. Interesting take on the leadership of a “conservative” party. Let’s see what they have for us.
• 0:39: 1783: Pitt “fought vested commercial interests and opened up Britain to free trade”. But wasn’t the Tory Party of the time the main representative of these vested (usually landed and aristocratic) interests? And wasn’t part of the Tory Party’s raison d’etre for the next 150 years to resist free trade?
• 0:46: “1828, the Duke of Wellington…Catholic emancipation, removing the worst political discrimination of the day”. Catholic Emancipation was granted reluctantly – as were most of Britain’s political reforms in the 19^th Century – to prevent an uprising, after the Catholic campaigner Daniel O’Connell won a Commons seat in County Clare twice and was barred from taking his seat. Wellington and Peel were both against Catholic Emancipation in principle; granting it was an act of retreat for the Tories.
• 0:54: “1834 Sir Robert Peel: His Tamworth Manifesto marked the birth of the modern Conservative Party”. Bully for him. In it, he reluctantly accepted the 1832 Reform Act (which eliminated corrupt rotten boroughs, and began the gradual extension of the franchise) which he had originally opposed. He also referred to much of the proposed change of his day as “a perpetual vortex of agitation”.
• 1:07: “Peel outlawed the employment of women and children in the mines…introduced regulation of factory hours and public health” – much of Peel’s record was piecemeal and modest, showing reluctant steps towards a reform agenda agitated for by real progressives for many years.
• 1:21 “…and repealed the Corn Laws, facing down the landed interests to cut food prices”. Well done Peel. But this was the cause of his leaving the Conservative Party he founded: the Peelites found themselves with the Whigs and Radicals in the new Liberal Party, and the Tories opposed free trade until the Second World War.
• 1:29: “1868 Benjamin Disraeli: ‘One Nation’ Conservatism: social reform to ‘elevate the condition of the people’”. First, the video conveniently omits thirty years in which Tory administrations resisted further electoral reform, rebuffed the Chartists, and repressed the Indian Mutiny. Secondly, Disraeli’s record was one of Imperialist adventuring and protectionism – a “bread and circuses” approach to keep the Working Classes appeased. Hardly progressive.
• 1:55: “1881 Lord Salisbury: championed local democracy and community action…created and empowered County Councils”. Salisbury – the epitome of aristocratic paleoconservativsm – came to regret this, declaring in 1894 that the local government he created was “the place where collectivist and socialistic experiments are tried. It is the place where a new revolutionary spirit finds its instruments and collects its arms”. Of course, it was left to Thatcher to actually abolish councils when they dared disagree with Tory policy.
• 2:09: “introduced free primary schooling”: the movement for free schooling had been crying out for universal free education for decades. Salisbury conceded only primary schooling – it was still out to work at 11, and it was left to the new councils to foot the bill. The truly progressive work, of a single system of universal secondary education, was left for later “progressives”.
• 2:16: “creation of the Primrose League, bringing large numbers of women into politics for the first time”. Did Salisbury, or the Tory Party, support women’s suffrage? No. They voted against it at every opportunity.
• 2:29: “Stanley Baldwin: comprehensive old age pensions system”. Wasn’t this actually done in 1909 by the Liberals?

I could go on, but I’m bored stiff already.

Glum Councillors

I know, I know. 6 weeks is too long to leave poor old Captain Jako to run the blog all on his lonesome. But I’ve been busy, and on holiday, and have determined to mend my ways.

I’m saving up for some nice long posts on esoteric areas of policy that you won’t want to read, but for the moment, I’m going to ease in slightly

The picture of a local councillor pointing at a pot hole and looking disgusted is, apparently, so much a part of British national life that it now merits its own blog, glumcouncillors.tumblr.com. This may well be the first known local government-themed internet meme. This effort gets the Paintbrush thumbs up – please send them your faves.

Knowing me, VoteRedGoGreen, knowing you, Norwich North…

I have just returned from the Norwich North by-election.

Not a great deal to report, although we didn’t see an awful lot of Tories, Liberals or Greens out. Lots of Labour people, and a really good vibe about the campaign (although, in fairness, there always is on a by-election – even Crewe and Nantwich had a certain something in the air).

Norwich is a lovely city, though, and does not deserve its reputation as described in the “Perception” section of Norwich’s Wikipedia page:

Norwich is sometimes portrayed in the UK media as a place which is remote, unsophisticated, gauche, and out-of-step with national trends (see Alan Partridge).

Now that’s just rude.

Council Housing = communism (apparently)

Hammersmith's Queen Caroline Estate, where - if Blaney is to be believed - tractor production is up 800%

There’s been coverage this week of a row in Hammersmith and Fulham, where the Tory council is tying itself in knots trying to deny its very clear plans for 21st Century Porterism.

As Tory Councillors in London’s wild west try to think up more wheezes and dodges to keep valiant seekers after truth off the scent, it’s refreshing to see that some in the Conservative Party are more refreshingly direct about their views on the complex issue of local authority housing.

Donal Blaney – who is to the Tories what football hooligans are to their chosen teams, and is himself a former Hammersmith and Fulham Councillor and no stranger to social engineering experiments with council housing – reckons that providing affordable and decent rented housing is, you know, evil.

[Local Labour MP Andy] Slaughter, and his ilk, wish to subjugate what they no doubt dismissively call “the working classes” to the might of the state, making them dependent on the state’s largesse so that they lose any last vestige of independence of thought, operation or dignity and so that they can be controlled and bullied by the levers of the left. It is, in essence, an evil creed that even the Cubans are moving away from.

Hmmm. Interesting. Because living in slum landlords’ private rented accomodation – which would be the only other option for most social tenants, with higher rent and far fewer routes to pursue for service improvement – would be such an improving, enlightened move.

Incidentally, if you were in any doubt as to what Cameron’s Militant Tendency are trying to do in Hammersmith and Fulham, you should see the shocking footage taken by local Labour leader Cllr Steve Cowan, who has been doggedly pursuing them to come clean for months.

Our housing policy must be coherent and fair – this is neither

"Are you Local?"

Oh dear. According to The Guardian, the Government’s new “local homes for local people” could leave local authorities open to legal challenges for discrimination.

It appears that IPPR, in an unpublished report commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, have conducted some research, and their findings are interesting – and should be heeded by the government.

First, the policy will unwittingly favour white residents over ethnic minorites if the criteria include such things as local family links, as ethnic minorities – no matter how settled and integrated they may be into their area – are less likely to have relatives living locally.

Secondly, consider this conclusion of the report in its estimation of the way that current housing allocations work in practice:

There was no evidence that allocation policies discriminated against white groups. There was a small amount of evidence that some [current] social housing policies unintentionally discriminated against minority ethnic communities.

This is the money shot, because the whole focus of the government’s change of tack on housing is to try to head off white working class anger about the way in which the housing system “favours” ethnic minorities.

There are lots of myths about housing: the BNP feed them, and then feed off them for their electoral advantage. I know anecdotally from campaigning in areas of BNP strength that certain things are held to be self-evident truths:

• Ethnic minorities can jump the queue.
• Asylum seekers get preference in housing allocations.
• Immigrants come to Britain specifically so that they can play the system.
• There is a conspiracy of do-gooder leftie types to encourage all of this, because they hate the white working class.

None of this is true. To show that it isn’t true, we need to expose the facts about housing, not adapt our policy so that it solves problems that only exist in far-right fantasyland. The facts are:

• Social housing is allocated on the basis of need, and need alone.
• This is assessed according to a number of criteria, including household income, number of dependents, and whether any family members require care and support services.
• If this is fair – and I think it is – the only reason why people will go without adequate housing is because of a lack of housing stock in which to house them.
• New social housing building has effectively stalled in the last decade.
• In many areas, “immigrants” (many of whom are actually ethnic minority Britons mistaken for immigrants) who are newcomers into social housing areas are acutually occupying former council houses that have been purchased, and then let privately.

The last point is, I think, the one which is the least-well understood, but which is the most important for understanding why so many white working class people feel like they do. But this being the case, the new government policy will be even more placebo-like in its effect in the toxic politics of race and housing.

Ultimately, the things that make people vote BNP aren’t based in nuts-and-bolts policy: they’re based (as are so many issues that arouse political passions) in the (mis)conceptions and (often irrational) feelings that surround policy areas. See these interviews with BNP voters for proof, if any were needed.

This being the case – and I’ve said it before – the best way to combat the BNP is not to try to legislate them or their issues away. In most cases this is simply foolish; in the case of housing, it’s actively harmful, and inimical to Labour values.

The sooner we realize that we have to defeat the BNP politically, the better – and that means taking the facts and the arguments to the streets. Pandering to lies just won’t do.

What we could – and should – be doing is uniting all people who are underhoused and in need of better social housing provision in a campaign to get local and central government to cough up the readies and build some, whether this means middle class people have to pay an extra £50 Council Tax each year or not.

Thoughts for Pride Day

Needless to say, all at Paintbrush Towers are very supportive of Pride, which is going on today.

I was looking through the political intertubes, and found some evidence that not everyone might share our view.

I wish gay people would leave it to the privacy of their own homes, trouble is they don’t, thus Gay pride marches and all that rubbish.

Would you like to try to explain the weird goings in a Gay pride march to a child?

I have nothing against homosexuals if that is the life they want. I do, however, object to homosexuality being pushed so vigorously, especially at young children… As for heterosexual families, you only have to look at history and modern day research to find that heterosexual families provide the greatest stability for children and nations.

Section 28 was a quintessentially liberal measure.

This clause was not designed to prevent equality, but to prevent inequality. The key word is ‘promote’. The threat perceived at the time (right or wrong) was from militant homosexuals who were not content with equality but trying to promote and therefore elevate the status of homosexuality. Please look at the wording of the legislation.

So where were these shocking comments found? Why, on ConservativeHome – the Tory Party’s mainstream internet hub.

Incidentally, I did take up the invitation of the last quoted commenter and looked at the precise wording of the legislation:

Prohibition on promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material

(1) A local authority shall not—

(a) intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality;

(b) promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.

This is the problem that a lot on the right don’t get. You can’t “promote” homosexuality; what was being promoted – opposed by the Thatcher Government – was tolerance, and teaching children that gay relationships should be regarded as equal with heterosexual relationships.

This is betrayed by the second clause in the section, banning the teaching of homosexuality “as a pretended family relationship”.

To claim – as the original poster and some of the commenters do – that Section 28 was a “liberal” measure, intended to keep the state essentially neutral on the issue of relationship education, is simply laughable and ignorant of the politics of the time.

Credit where it’s due. I’m glad that Cameron and Johnson have said publicly that they think Section 28 was a mistake, and I’m glad that they are now embracing things like Pride.

But we should be under no illusions: at best, Tories don’t quite get the imperative for government (at all levels) to actively promote tolerance. At worst, they are – as many of the commenters above show themselve to be – grossly intolerant.

Why wealth matters

Over the past 12 years Labour has generally shied away from expounding on the subject of wealth, preferring instead to be seen to wish to “reward success” and focus efforts on giving aid to the worst off, rather than taking pops at the rich.

This wasn’t such a bad political strategy – especially in the 1990s, when, for good or for ill, we needed to do everything we could to convince the British public that we were able to accept the status quo in a society which fetishized great wealth.

But the way things are now, we need to focus on the issues that wealth and its present distribution present; both in terms of the way our political discouse takes place, and in the nuts and bolts of policy.

The first point is on the very different ways in which moral judgements are made about the rich and the poor. Consider the 50% tax rate. This comes via a particularly daft unreconstructed Thatcherite:

Economic think-tanks have already readily condemned the tax rise as pointless with the Institute of Fiscal Studies warning that the treasury’s predictions regarding the tax have a “very high degree of uncertainty” and many predicting that this could lead to an overall loss in government revenue rather than a gain with businesses simply moving abroad and many using loopholes to declare their income as Capital Gains.

Forget for a second that he’s simply wrong. Forget that there is no evidence to suggest that the 50% rate will have a negative tax yield (no matter what the Laffer-curve believing monetarist flat earthers think), and that very few of the extremely rich will actually leave the UK (most of them seem to like London, for some reason).

What’s significant here is a complete moral absolution of people who choose to arrange their affairs such that they avoid paying UK tax, and so drive up the tax that must be found from you and me. The wealthy are never – never, ever, ever – condemned for this sort of behaviour.

But the wealthy are not the only group in society against whom it is levelled that they arrange their work affairs so that they can maximize their own income – the unemployed are, if you believe the tabloids, very assidious about avoiding work and maximizing the benefits that they receive as a result.

The outcome here? Widespread and loud moral condemnation, of a sort that drowns out the calmer voices in debates about economc inactivity and work.

It’s clear to me, then, that – despite the fact that “economic rationality” is acting in the same way in each instance – the “public debate” holds that the poor have very strong moral duties to the rest of us which trump their economic self interest. The wealthy, on the other hand, have no moral obligations of any kind: they must simply carry on being splendid.

That this is the case has led to a deterioration in the way we think about wealth, poverty, inequality and social cohesion.

The second point about wealth is that growth benefits the general public in different ways, depending on where it is generated. I’ll take just one small example of what I mean.

An important, and oft-overlooked, component of the benefits of economic growth is the externalities that arise from increasing demand for certain goods and services – usually, in the form of product improvements and market enhancement.

What this means is that broad based growth, which raises the disposable income of a relatively large number of people, has the potential to be extremely beneficial to future consumers.

The economic good years of the 1950s, for example, were broad based, and resulted, famously, in a huge expansion in the ownership of consumer durables – fridges, TVs, washing machines and vacuum cleaners.

But the best bit is that this becomes a virtuous circle, because the demand in these sector drives innovation and competition. So, a family which bought a fridge for £75 in 1952 were benefiting families who bought a better fridge for £40 in 1957.

Growth in the last 25 or so years, though, has been based on a very small number of very wealthy people – and this is where the mass benefit breaks down.

The improvements to the quality of yachts, or the redesign of the Bentley Continental, have far less application to our own lives than would improvements to products that we actually buy – and in a world where the wealthy are increasingly cut-off from the rest of us in lifestyle, this is increasingly the case. The growth and its benefits we have seen in positive GDP growth figures up to before the recession has, in actuality, been concentrated in a very few hands.

Before we can be honest with ourselves about the limitations of Britain’s wealth fetish, we will have a blinkered view of what can be done to make our economy one that is broad based, and so able to benefit more people more of the time.